


drink with me (like old times again)

by Chairman



Category: Xi You Ji | Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en, 宝莲灯 | Bǎo Lián Dēng | Lotus Lantern (1999)
Genre: 1980s shanghai, Alcohol, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Reincarnation, Technically underage drinking, ship is one-sided, yang jian is a baby gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25938583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chairman/pseuds/Chairman
Summary: Yang Jian has two goals tonight: get drunk and get laid. He sits like a gazelle at the bar, waiting for the waiting to end and a new chapter in his life to begin. He didn't expect to meet a stranger who treats him like an old friend.
Relationships: Sūn Wùkōng | Monkey King/Yang Jian | Erlang Shen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	drink with me (like old times again)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, enjoy a reincarnation au that nobody asked for. In this universe, the Daoist pantheon were all reincarnated around the Republic era, but the Buddhist pantheon still remain. Enjoy this fic of adolescent Yang Jian being a disaster baby gay.

Strobe lights pierced the smoke hanging inside the bar, creating new constellations before vanishing to the beat of some foreign music. A man clad all in denim strummed a guitar in the corner, crooning in a cigarette-tinged tenor. Some men were dancing, their bodies only silhouettes in the dim, welcoming light.

Yang Jian gripped his beer as he scanned the room, not sure if he wanted to find someone else staring back or not. He had tried to smoke a cigarette before coming here, but he still could not stop himself from coughing after the first tug. It would be two years before he learned how to smoke properly, and twenty more before he could finally quit.

He was eighteen, in a gay bar in Shanghai and trying to finish his first full bottle of beer. He had only been in the city for three months, but that already felt like too much time wasted tracking down rumors and overhearing conversations in the streets. Until he was finally here, at a bar that took fifty minutes to get to from campus, in a part of town he had never been to before. Among his people.

His people. They seemed like any other people, the type to frequent bars like these in any other part of town. There were probably tells he did not know of yet—handkerchiefs in back pockets, shirts tucked halfway in. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he felt phantom stares brought about by his own self-consciousness.

Everything he was wearing was new and fit him poorly, too tight in some places and too loose in others. The leather jacket he was wearing was too warm, and still smelled of the store he bought it in. He had even considered putting on some eyeliner and bronzer but could not bring himself to brave the shame of standing in line with the items in his hand, or the terror of his roommates finding it and asking questions.

He hoped his features were not too plain, and he also wished to disappear completely into the dimness of the room. After every sip of beer, whose foreign bitterness made him wince, Yang Jian would glance around the room, eyes darting from face to face hoping to meet someone else’s eyes. _Notice me,_ he pleaded to the universe at large. _But don’t look at me._

Someone pulled out the stool next to his and sat down. Yan Jian tried not to startle, taking several deep breaths and putting on his most uninterested face.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see the man next to him wave over the bartender and order things in a heavy Northern accent. After a moment, a plate of roasted peanuts was placed in between them.

Yan Jian tilted his head back and took a large swig of his beer, tilting his head back to take a look at the stranger. He had a harsh face, heavily tanned from the sun but without any wrinkles, giving him a sort of ageless wisdom that could put him anywhere between his 20s and his 40s. A wild mane of golden hair framed his face, held back from his eyes with a bandanna, and even his eyebrows were dyed golden. A tiger-print shirt stretched over his thin frame, though from the looks of his bare arms he had a sort of wiry strength about him.

The man was also staring back at Yang Jian with a mischievous look in his eyes, somehow reflecting the gold of the incandescent bulb above them. Surprised, Yang Jian sputtered and coughed as carbonation traveled up his throat and into his nostrils. The man next to him laughed, high-pitched and wicked, and his golden eyes gleamed.

“Nothing wrong with staring here,” he said, pushing the plate of peanuts towards Yang Jian. “We’re all friends here.” He extended his hand towards Yang Jian. “You can call me Mei Houwang.”

Yang Jian laughed despite himself as he shook the man’s hand. Mei Houwang smiled in response. “Something humorous, kiddo?”

“Just a funny name is all. I’m not stupid, I know what a monkey is around here.”

Mei Houwang put up his hands mockingly, either in surrender or offense. “You look like a first timer here; I didn’t want to assume.”

“Does it show?” Yang Jian wasn’t sure if he was blushing as he checked his pants and the collar of his shirt, trying to find any tells of his naivete.

“Only if you have good eyes. Which I do,” Mei Houwang winked. “Also, you look miserable every time you take a drink of that beer.”

“Is that the sign of a newbie or an alcoholic?”

“Can be either, but you’re too well put together to be a sixteen-year-old alcoholic. No guarantees that you won’t become the latter in a couple of years, though.”

Yang Jian took another drink and forced his face to betray no expression. “That’s a pretty gloomy thing to say to a stranger. And I’m almost nineteen.”

“Tell me your name and we won’t be strangers anymore,” Mei Houwang winked.

Yang Jian chuckled and bit his lip. Conversation fell easily out of his tongue with this strange man. There was a warmth between them, a camaraderie different from the nameless passion Yang Jian had prepared himself for when he entered the bar.

To be fair, his idea of what would happen from the time he walked into the bar to the time he was tongue deep in another man’s mouth was vague to begin with. He had hoped there would have been a system, some tap on the shoulder or a pointed look that told him to meet up in the bathroom or the alley, to follow a stranger home.

“Which _jian_ is it?”

“The first one you’d think of. 见面的见 _._ ”

Mei Houwang’s face fell, as if he had expected it to be something different.

Yang Jian fiddled with his beer bottle, debating what to do in the awkward silence. He imagined his first to be gruff and imperious, a sage of the forbidden world he was entering. Someone harsh and cold because only people like that could survive in this world. He did not expect softness and warmth from loving men. Not someone with golden hair and shining eyes, who spoke to Yang Jian like an old buddy from school might.

He did not expect to make friends at the bar.

“So,” Yang Jian said, gathering his courage and leaning towards Mei Houwang in a way that hopefully was seductive. “You know my name now. Are we friends yet?”

Disappointingly, Mei Houwang leaned back as Yang Jian approached. Taken aback, Yang Jian retreated. The two of them held each other’s gaze, and the younger man could feel something electric between them, a telephone wire carrying a live current.

Mei Houwang was the first to recover and look away, quickly tapping on the bar table to get the bartender’s attention. “Sorry about that,” he said, pointedly not looking at Yang Jian anymore. “I feel like we should have a couple of more drinks before we’re friends.”

“Oh,” Yang Jian breathed, disappointed. He had readied himself so much for a one-night stand, he did not consider the possibility of rejection. It was tough realizing the man next to him was still a stranger, despite knowing his name.

“Don’t worry, I’m buying. You ever try vodka?”

Yang Jian had, once. He was fourteen and had found a bottle of clear liquid in his older brother’s room. There was a picture of a mermaid on the label of the bottle, pale with blonde hair. She sat on a green logo in a language he could not read—Russian. Yang Jian had taken a sip, half knowing what it was and half because it was unknown. It was the worst thing he had tasted in his life, as if he had just drank mosquito repellent: simultaneously cold, hot, and medicinal.

“You drink it all in one go—just tilt your head back and swallow.”

Five years later and it still tasted like medicine.

“No lie there,” Mei Houwang replied when Yang Jian grimaced and told him what he thought of the liquor. “You want another shot?”

Adulthood, Yang Jian figured, was learning to take one’s medicine.

A few shots in, and Mei Houwang’s face was red like a macaque’s. He carried it well, though, the blush lively against his yellow hair. He looked like a cartoon character, or a portrait for a neon vinyl. When he smiled lines deepened in his face, a pattern of moles, freckles and wrinkles giving way to a sort of artful symmetry, like an opera singer’s mask.

“So are you like, the king of twinks?” Yang Jian slurred after two more shots.

Mei Houwang raised his eyebrow. “Maybe so. What do you think?”

“I think you’re too weird looking to be called ‘Beautiful Monkey King.’”

“Are you questioning my name?”

“It’s obviously a fake one.” Yang Jian peered into a shot glass, then moved it to look at Mei Houwang as if peering through a telescope. His body was electric; he was painfully aware of every part, how his arm pressed against the other man’s arm, how their knees almost touched. “I feel like Houzi suits you better. What gives you the right to be king?”

Mei Houwang’s face lit up when Yang Jian called him ‘Houzi,’ and he retorted, “Funnily enough I’ve been called Houzi before by little punks like you. Little punks who question my authority.”

“I can definitely kick your ass.”

“Is that a challenge?”

Feeling bold, Yang Jian grabbed the collar of Houzi’s shirt and pulled him in close. “I’d take a challenge or an invitation,” he whispered. There was warmth between them, he could feel it. His mind was already jumping into the future, thinking about beds and bodies and of coming home to himself at last.

Once again, Houzi leaned away from Yang Jian and jerked his shirt from the young man’s grip. The warmth between them was gone, replaced with an awkward chill. “Did you think I started talking to you because I wanted to sleep with you?” He said it without any malice, which made it a thousand times worse.

Yang Jian slumped and clenched his fist. He suddenly felt small and foolish, a boy playing dress-up in leather jackets and biker pants, desperately pretending to be a man. All of a sudden the room was too bright, too loud—too _alive_ , and he had to lean against the table for support.

Someone’s hand was on his shoulder, firm and supportive. The kind of gesture his older brother used to make to comfort him when he was little. Brotherly, platonic.

“Why are you still here?” Yang Jian mumbled, desperately trying to hold back tears. “I’m wasting my time with you. I’m going to talk with someone else.”

“You’re going to summon another conversation with the intensity of your stare?”

Yang Jian turned his head and looked Houzi in the eyes. The other man’s face was calm, remnant lines from a smirk still lining the corners of his mouth. When their eyes met, his were distant and sad, as if he looked at Yang Jian and saw someone else.

Bravely, Yang Jian straightened his back and said, “I summoned you.”

Houzi’s hand tightened for a second on his back, and then loosened and fell away. “Maybe you did,” Houzi said quietly. With a sigh, he stood up and dusted off his jacket. “Sorry for wasting your time, Erlang, I was merely hoping to spend time with a friend. Best of luck with finding a bedmate tonight.” With that, he headed out of the bar.

Yang Jian sat alone at the bar for a few moments, staring at the empty shot glasses arranged like soldiers between him and the empty seat next to him. He was surrounded by the sound of people and music, of life and community he had dreamt of for years. Why was he suddenly discombobulated by a single conversation, by a man with golden hair and piercing eyes?

He could stay and chat someone else up. The night was young and the liquor he drank made him brave. He could forget about the yellow-haired weirdo who came onto him and then didn’t, who talked with him as if they were old friends.

Houzi had called him Erlang. How did he know Yang Jian was his family’s second son?

He could come back to this bar whenever. He had no idea if Houzi was a regular here, or if he had stopped by tonight and only tonight. Something happened; the stars aligned tonight so that they may meet.

As Yang Jian stood up and adjusted his jacket, ready to leave, the bartender raised his hand and coughed politely. “The gentleman with you didn’t pay,” he said.

“That fucker,” Yang Jian groaned and pulled out his wallet.

He rushed out of the bar in a sprint, not knowing how fast Houzi would be meandering in the empty streets. Did his deliberation last too long—was the stranger gone into the night?

Streetlamps filled the night with a pleasant yellow glow, a safe haven from the expanding skyline that loomed ominously in the distance. The light around him was too bright so he could not admire the view fully, see the many lights from the skyscrapers and apartment complexes shine like stars, for Shanghai at night to be the Mecca he thought it would be.

The night was cool and slightly humid. The hum of summer’s last cicadas murmured quietly in the night, as if they were the dying breath of summer itself. Already autumn’s fire was sweeping through the trees, transforming green to yellow, red, and brown.

In the distance, perhaps two streets down, a dog began to bark. Yang Jian turned and followed the sound, letting it guide him for he was already lost.

He had a feeling he’d find the man who called himself Mei Houwang leaning against the railing, smoking a cigarette. He stood beneath the boughs of a cypress tree, between two cones of light cast by streetlamps on either side. He glanced his way as Yang Jian approached, taking one last deep puff before blowing out a large plume of smoke and extinguishing the butt of the cigarette beneath his heel.

He glanced over at Yang Jian, eyes glowing like a cat’s in the darkness, and said, “You know, for a while I went by Xingzhe. Though I guess it’s you who is searching at this current moment.”

“How do you know me?” Yang Jian asked, taking long strides until he was face to face with the stranger, able to smell the smoke in his breath.

Houzi tilted his chin up to look at Yang Jian, who was a good five centimeters taller despite being younger. “So you gave up on trying to chat up another stranger?”

“Answer my question, you damn monkey.”

The man’s smile widened. “I think by now you know the answer.”

Impatient, Yang Jian took one hand and placed it on the other man’s shoulder. “Stop joking around. You called me Erlang; why?”

“Aren’t you the second son of your family?”

“I never told you that. And I’m not drunk enough to forget about telling you that.”

“Maybe you have an air of a second son.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” Houzi said, grasping the hand Yang Jian had on his shoulder, “you’re constantly watching and waiting, because you have too much ambition and too little resources. You don’t bear the burden of the family name; no, instead you bear the burden of your own irrelevancy, a freedom you don’t think you deserve.”

Yang Jian pulled his hand from Houzi’s shoulder; Houzi released his own purchase on Yang Jian’s hand with an exaggerated flourish.

“You don’t know me,” Yang Jian said quietly.

A hand touched his shoulder, before moving cautiously to caress his cheek. Worn, weathered and calloused, long dexterous fingers and a warm palm.

“I’ve known you for a very long time.”

A dull ache tugged at Yang Jian’s heart, a familiar feeling he often felt upon waking from a dream he could not remember, tears streaked across his face. All of a sudden the sky expanded, and he could see more of the night sky even though his eyes did not move. When he blinked, he could feel a third eyelid closing vertically on his forehead.

“The first time we met,” Yang Jian said slowly, “we fought for what felt like days.”

Houzi moved his hand away from Yang Jian’s cheek and nudged him with an elbow, nodding in a direction along the street. Yang Jian followed automatically, not knowing where he was or where he was going. They could be walking towards a garden or a highway, their feet on cement or clouds. It was a walk to nowhere and everywhere at once, what took days happening in seconds.

“You were really tough, I grant you that,” Houzi laughed. “After a while I knew I wasn’t able to beat you head-on, so I had to retreat to lick my wounds.”

“You turned into a fish and jumped into a stream. I chased you as a heron.”

“And I tried to crush your neck as an eagle.”

“I was then a wolf.”

“I a tiger.”

“And finally, a lion of stone so heavy I could crush fifty men.”

They turned a corner, pace quickening, and in his excitement Yang Jian put his arm around the other man. He worried the action was too forward, but after a moment he felt someone’s hand on his waist.

“And that’s when I decided to run,” the other man said.

Yang Jian remembered. He could close his eyes and picture that small temple tucked in the side of Flower Fruit Mountain, painted red and gold with a conspicuous pillar in the back. The monkey’s disguise betrayed by his tail.

“By that time you were past Mei Houwang,” Yang Jian said. “Not yet Xingzhe either—what did you call yourself? The Great Sage?”

“Equal to Heaven, don’t forget that part.”

“How pretentious,” Yang Jian laughed, letting the laughter hang in the night air while he contemplated the gravity of their conversation. It had felt so easy, the words tumbling from his mouth. Easy as remembering a birthday or a poem. Like reaching a hand into one’s pocket and immediately grabbing what was needed.

Talking to Mei Houwang—Xingzhe—the Great Sage Equal to Heaven—made Yang Jian feel eight feet tall, towering and broad and confident in himself. He was a warrior with brothers at his side, a hound at his feet and a glaive in his hand. For a moment he wasn’t an anxious adolescent desperately parading adulthood; he was Erlang Shen, the Jade Emperor’s nephew, out and drunk and having a good time with his friend. His friend—Yang Jian turned to him and muttered in disbelief:

“You can’t be Sun Wukong.”

The man who wore many names like tassels upon his tiger skirt—the man with golden hair and fiery eyes—smiled and stepped away from Yang Jian. “You remember now.”

Yang Jian let his arm go limp against his side. “How did I ever forget?”

“Reincarnation does strange things to memory. I honestly didn’t know if you’d remember anything at all.”

Yang Jian was at a loss for words. He was at once ancient warrior and child, and all he could muster was a weak, “How?”

“All gods must fall at some point. That’s how _samsara_ works.”

Yang Jian huffed and plunged his hands into his jacket pockets. “I want to ask more but I don’t know if you have any more answers.”

“Good instincts. I don’t.”

“Is it time to go back?”

“Back to what, exactly?”

“Being a god,” Yang Jian said with unexpected bitterness. “Overseeing the mortal realm and slaying demons and every other bullshit thing I had to do while I was Erlang Shen.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

“I…” Yang Jian paused. Why did the prospect of divinity leave such a sour taste in his mouth? Hadn’t he spent the entirety of his adolescence wishing to get away from his family house? Didn’t he constantly wish he could wake up into a different life, one where he was actually brave? Wasn’t this what he wished for?

“I’ve done jack shit with this life,” he said. “I’ve spent most of it afraid and dreaming of a future where I am older and stronger, where the rest of the world can’t hurt me. And now instead of losing my virginity, I’m sobering up and lost in an alley with _you_.” At this, Yang Jian glared at Sun Wukong. “And you say I’m a god; you call me an old friend, and I can just step into divinity again as if nothing’s happened.”

“It seems that your divinity has welcomed you back.”

“Shut up, you damn monkey,” Yang Jian snapped, his voice foreign in his ears. It resonated in his skull, deep and sonorous, the voice of a leader. As he looked around the world seemed smaller than it did before. The skyline that once towered over him in the distance seemed so quaint now, like stacks of dominoes that he could easily knock over. As he glanced along the neighborhood he could see faint auras everywhere: signs of residents asleep a bit after midnight.

Yang Jian kicked a rock in anger. “Why did you look for me now, and not when I was a child? I could have just grown up into godhood instead of growing up into…me.”

“I don’t care about your godhood,” Wukong shrugged. “I just woke up today and thought, ‘I haven’t checked in on my good friend Erlang Shen in a while.’ I thought we could catch up like old times.”

“My memory is still foggy. How would we ‘catch up’?”

“Same as we did tonight. Have a few drinks, spout shit about nothing. We usually end up fighting.”

“Well, it’s all going according to plan, then.”

Sun Wukong raised a finger. “We had a few drinks,” he said, and then raised a second finger, “and definitely spouted some shit, but when I said fight I meant actually _fight_ , not throw insults at each other like schoolboys.”

Yang Jian took in a deep breath, letting his lungs expand in a chest much larger than he was used to. He looked down at his hand; it still looked like his hand. “Fuck it,” he said. Yang Jian curled it into a fist and sent a punch towards Sun Wukong’s face.

The monkey must have been expecting it, as he dodged it easily and retaliated with a chop to Yang Jian’s side. Yang Jian doubled over, winded, and stumbled a few feet back to catch his breath.

When he raised his head, he saw Sun Wukong idly examining his nails as if he had just swatted away an annoying insect. As Yang Jian straightened up to his full height, he no longer felt eight feet tall and powerful. Just himself, young and athletic but fully mortal, with no force of divinity to back his punches. In that moment he didn’t care; he was still standing, still had his two fists and heavy workman boots on his feet. Godhood be damned, he just wanted to get a solid hit on the monkey.

There was no way he could best the Monkey King himself in martial arts. The two things Yang Jian had going for him was his size and his youth. After several blows, however, his size began to seem more and more like a liability. His arms felt like long steel pendulums, their arcs slow and predictable, whereas Sun Wukong effortlessly weaved in between his attacks and gave sharp jabs in retaliation.

The fight came down to endurance. There came a moment after another punch where Yang Jian ended with his back against the wall, and as he leaned into it for support, he realized he could no longer stand. He sunk down onto the ground, defeated.

Sun Wukong squatted in front of him, casually placed his thumb on Yang Jian’s forehead, covering up his third eye and said, “I win.”

Yang Jian had no energy left to fight, even as he felt himself jostled and hoisted onto Sun Wukong’s shoulders, feet dragging on the ground due to the height difference. From the hue of the night sky it must have been past midnight. All at once the lateness, the booze, and the fight took their toll on Yang Jian’s body and he felt himself slowly slipping out of consciousness.

“I’ll win next time,” he mumbled. “I’ll be Erlang Shen and I’ll kick your ass.”

“Maybe so. But I liked fighting Yang Jian, too. Don’t spend the next decade chasing your divinity; it will come naturally.”

“That’s not fair. I spent the last decade waiting for something else, afraid to chase it because of the pain it would bring, both to me and my family. I was so scared of the shame. And when I finally decided to start chasing it, I ran into you.” Yang Jian looked up at the sky and admired the almost full moon. He wondered if the rabbit there was lonely without Chang E. Did Tu’er Shen also abandon his post?

“You’d rather chase divinity because it’s easy.”

“Society will not shun a god.” Yang Jian had more to say, about his childhood and his deeply held shame, but Sun Wukong had walked next to a low-hanging tree branch and the bough smacked Yang Jian in the face, though the monkey himself was unscathed.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Yang Jian” Sun Wukong said, pronouncing _jian_ with the forth tone with emphasis. You’ve been given a gift, to live a mortal life—no mothers under mountains or vengeful nephews. You can write your own mortal story, and at the end of it your divinity will be waiting like an old friend.”

Despite the turmoil in his heart, Yang Jian was slowly falling asleep, his eyelids growing heavier every time he closed them. Sun Wukong’s words sounded as if they were underwater, simultaneously echoing from far away and projecting directly into his ears. There was a dull ache in Yang Jian’s chest, but in his exhaustion, he could not tell what emotion he was feeling.

-

Yang Jian woke up with a headache. He was still in his clothes from the night before, laying on top of a blanket instead of being covered by it. Multiple parts of his body ached, and as he became aware of each body part, he could feel something digging into his left buttock. His wallet. No guarantee that he wasn’t robbed, but a good start.

Memories of the night before were hazy. He didn’t remember what he drank past the second shot of vodka—oh yeah, he had drunk vodka for the first time. He didn’t remember taking the bus home, so it was a toss-up where he was exactly. Nothing that he didn’t take into account. He absently patted the inside of his jacket and could feel its contents: a map, a condom (unopened, which was a shame), and some emergency cash. Gathering his willpower, Yang Jian sat up. Best to check his wallet to make sure everything was there.

The room spun as he sat up, and he felt nauseous just thinking. He gripped the nightstand with one hand to steady himself, and that’s when he realized that he was in his own dormitory room. A clock on the wall read half past ten, which explained why all of his roommates were gone—the cafeteria closed at eleven on the weekends.

Yang Jian sighed and laid back down. He didn’t remember much of the night before, but it was clear that he didn’t accomplish what he had set out to do. Slowly, he began to wriggle out of his jacket and his uncomfortable pants.

There was time to get up and get water. His headache was slowly fading, and despite the disappointment Yang Jian found that what was mostly in his heart was hope. He had more weekends to spend at that bar, and even if all he did was talk to one of the patrons, all he felt was vague joy when he tried to remember the night before. Suddenly, Yang Jian became aware of his youth, and the existential horror of being miniscule in the grand scheme of the Republic put him at ease.

There was a lot of life he had yet to live. And at the end of it, well, somehow he knew that an old friend would be waiting. 

**Author's Note:**

> Current mortal Yang Jian's name is written 杨见, but it used to be 杨戬. The former jian is fourth tone, the latter is third.
> 
> Houzi (monkey) is a termed used in Chinese gay culture to describe an effeminate man. I have no idea if it was used back then, though. 
> 
> Also please forgive a beijingren's shoddy depiction of Shanghai, I've never been T_T


End file.
